Pizza sales great when reheated

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Pizzeria owners finally feel a slice of relief

Shopkeepers survived by neighborhood’s support

by Katherine Donlevy

Associate Editor

What is New York City without its pizza?

Luckily — even through the pandemic — we don’t know. And shop owners are continuing the fight to keep it that way.

“When the pandemic first hit, it was a big ‘wow’ factor for all of us: ‘What’s going on, what are we going to do?’” said Vishee Mandahar, owner of Krave It Pizza & Sandwich Joint in Bayside. Mandahar shut down operation for two weeks to keep his employees and their families safe from the virus, but spent the time off crafting a plan to return. When he did, he focused on making pies for area hospitals as thank-you’s to their essential workers before opening back up to the public.

The joint, famous for its creative take on pizza, suffered a revenue drop like so many other eateries. Mandahar said the decrease was exacerbated by the 10 p.m. curfew the governor had placed on restaurants in the first few months of the pandemic — Krave It was open until 4 a.m. and benefited from Bell Boulevard’s nightlife.

“It’s like having two businesses. We have a daytime business and a nighttime business,” he said.

But over a year later, Mandahar said business is almost back to normal. He extended the restaurant’s hours back to 4 a.m. last week, and its revenue reflects its prepandemic numbers. Even through one of the hardest years, he was able to open a second location in Astoria in April.

Mandahar attributes his survival and success to his and his employees’ hustle, but that determination wasn’t enough to see plenty of other restaurants through. Even just a few blocks away, Pete’s Pizza, which had been operating on the strip for 40 years, closed its oven for good last year.

According to a report from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the city restaurant industry lost 226,000 jobs because of the pandemic, and sales dropped an average of 71 percent during the threemonth period of March, April and May of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.

The Queens Chamber of Commerce estimates that of the 6,000 Queens small restaurants that existed before the pandemic, roughly 1,000 have closed their doors for good.

Flushing was among the first in the area to feel the effects of the pandemic. In February 2020, business dropped by 40 percent in the Asian-dominated neighborhood, according to an estimate by the Flushing Chinese Business Association. The sudden decrease prompted a visit by Mayor de Blasio, who declared city Chinatowns “open for business” — one month later, Gov. Cuomo shut business down throughout the state.

Marc Sarwari’s pizzeria suffered in those weeks before other restaurants did. He’s owned Lucia Pizza in Downtown Flushing for 26 years and said it was the first time he’d ever seen the neighborhood empty.

“We were the only [open] business on the whole block. There was nothing going on. It was a ghost town,” Sarwari said.

With restaurants reduced to takeout, Sarwari said an increase in delivery orders helped sustain his business. It also helped that his pizzeria is one of the few games in town, but that alone wasn’t enough to cement his confidence. For approximately six months, Sarwari was unsure his business would survive.

With the help of government grants and higher foot traffic, Lucia Pizza is nearly out of the woods. Sarwari said the business is not back at 100 percent, but stable.

“We just have to keep doing what we do best: Make great pizza,” said Sarwari.

Though so many shops were lost during the pandemic, many

Vishee Mandahar, owner of Krave It Pizza and Sandwich Joint in Bayside, said his business is finally seeing prepandemic revenue after a year of struggle, capacity and hour limitations and concern for public safety. The hard work paid off, and Mandahar opened a second location in Astoria several weeks ago. PHOTO BY KATHERINE DONLEVY

neighborhoods were lucky to see new ones crop up in their places.

In Springfield Gardens, The Pizza Shop opened in April after longstanding L’amici Pizza & Pasta closed its doors last year. Though sad to see the older, 30-year-old pizzeria close, the community was ecstatic that another had come to take its place, said the new joint’s manager, who asked to be referred to as J.

“You want to cater to the building, to the community,” he said, adding that the neighborhood’s proximity to the airport has been an advantage to the budding business. “JFK is a unique community.”

The Pizza Shop’s revenue has increased with every week in operation, mainly due to an increase in flights at the airport. J has served pilots, flight attendants and tourists in addition to his new neighborhood regulars.

Welcoming new faces is a phenomenon even established pizzerias are enjoying — Sal of Joe and John’s Pizzeria in Ridgewood said it’s been a delight getting to know the voices from the phone from the past few months.

“We had an increase in deliveries,” the owner said. Fewer people are traveling into Manhattan for work and more have been spending their money in their own neighborhoods, Sal theorized. Plus pizza is generally cheap and customers can order one pie and spread it out for multiple meals over multiple days.

“We have so many new faces now because people [are] looking up what else is in their neighborhoods,” Sal said. Q